The present invention relates in general to aquatic monitoring devices and, more particularly, to reducing biofouling of aquatic monitoring devices.
Datasondes are commonly deployed in aquatic environments to collect multi-parameter water quality data. These aquatic environments often present conditions that lead to pervasive biofouling of the datasonde's sensors. Biofouling reduces the quality of the data collected because the fouling organisms interfere with the function of the sensors. In addition, the concentrated activity of the biofouling organisms may impact the sensors' ability to monitor the ambient water quality by creating a microenvironment in the immediate vicinity of the sensors. To maintain sample integrity in extended datasonde deployments in high biofouling environments, frequent maintenance is necessary to manually clean and recalibrate the datasonde and its sensors. This level of maintenance is costly and in remote deployments, can be cost prohibitive. In the majority of aquatic datasonde deployments, biofouling is often the single biggest factor affecting operation, maintenance, and data quality.
Various technologies have been utilized to respond to biofouling with limited success. Most advancements have been in cladding of datasondes in copper or coating the datasonde with anti-bio-fouling paint. While such applications make for an easier cleanup it does little to reduce bio-fouling at the sensor interface because a pH sensor or optical window cannot be painted or plated with copper. To date, biofouling prevention has not been adequately addressed and continues to present a major challenge and cost in aquatic environment monitoring.
There is therefore a need for an aquatic monitoring apparatus that reduces or resists biofouling of multiparameter datasondes, which will result in increased data quality, extended deployments, and less datasonde maintenance.